@eric_dean

Great question! Escaping the quotation marks should be as easy as putting a backslash before the quotes in the text block of our JSON file. So, for example, if we wanted something like this:

Lorem ipsum "dolor" sit amet

we’d write it like this:

Lorem ipsum \"dolor\" sit amet

The backslashes should be read as an “escape” to keep the quotation marks in the text from interfering with the formatting of the JSON data file.

Hopefully, that should be all we need, but if you have any other questions, please feel free to reach out.

Thanks,

Jeff

@1337err

We can take a look at the templater.log and templater.err files to see if there’s any additional information there, but from my experience, I doubt that there will be anything more specific than what we’ve already got. Unfortunately, AE tends to be a bit vague with its error syntax.

However, if we can reliably re-create the error, we should be able to use the technique that I outlined in my previous post to narrow things down relatively quickly. In the past, I’ve done this by making a copy of the file with the problem, opening it, and bulk deleting 50% of the assets in the Project panel. Depending on whether the error persists, we should be able to logically assess which half of the project data contains the error.

Once we figure that out, we can repeat the process by either restoring the deleted assets and deleting the other 50% or by deleting 50% of what’s left and checking whether the error reoccurs. By chopping out increasingly smaller chunks of the project, we should be able to get a bead on what layers are causing the issue without a massive amount of undue work. Hopefully that helps to get things moving in the right direction.

Thanks,

Jeff

@JakeLumbis

That should absolutely be possible! I’d recommend reviewing this post for some additional information, but basically, this is how we’d go about it.

First, we’d want to create two new text layers named “LRW rStart” and “LRW rEnd” (with no quotes). Once we’ve got these layers in our project and we’re sure that they’re bringing in the values we want, we should be able to move on to the next step.

From there, we’ll want to add an Animator to the text layer we want to change; I’d recommend “Stroke Color”. However, we’ll also need to click the “Add” button and add the “Stroke Width” and “Stroke Color>Opacity” properties. We’ll also want to adjust the “Stroke Width” and “Stroke Color” layers to create the Faux Bold effect. After that, we’ll want to expand the “Range Selector 1” property and drill down to the “Advanced” section.

In that area, we’ll want to set “Units” to “Index” and “Based On” to “Words”. Finally, we’ll want to go back to the “Start” and “End” values of the “Range Selector 1”. Alt/Option-click on the Stopwatch to the left of the word “Start”. This should open the Expression editor. For the “Start” Expression, we’ll want to reference the “LRW rStart” layer’s value. So, for that, we would use:

text.animator("Animator 1").selector("Range Selector 1").start,parseInt(thisComp.layer("LRW rStart").text.sourceText)-1

for the “End” value, we’ll want a similar expression that references our “End” number:

text.animator("Animator 1").selector("Range Selector 1").end,parseInt(thisComp.layer("LRW rEnd").text.sourceText)

That should, in theory, work for what you’re trying to achieve. However, depending on the format of the text, it might take some tweaking. For example, in the screenshot provided, it looks like the text is formatted in a single block, which might require us to make our calculations by the number of characters rather than the number of words.

Either way that should be enough to get you started. If you have any questions, please feel free to get in touch.

Thanks,

Jeff

@1337err

In the past, when we’ve run into this error, it seemed to be related to Templater’s Time Sculpting Feature. It seems to occur when the logic for Time Sculpting gets broken, resulting in Templater attempting to adjust a layer in a way that’s mathematically out of bounds for After Effects.

Given that this is only occurring intermittently, the first thing I’d recommend would be to check the Time Sculpted assets in the Data Set that’s causing the issue to make sure that we’re not attempting to load footage that breaks the project’s logic.

For example, if a layer was suddenly loading a missing asset, a media object with 0 frames, or something with a strange frame rate, that would likely cause a problem with the Time Sculpting that might result in this error.

If all else fails, if we can reproduce the error, we could always make a copy of the project and start removing layers a few at a time until the error disappears. If we’re able to track down the exact layer that’s causing the issue, it might give us a better idea of what’s going on and why the error is being thrown.

I’d recommend starting with that and then seeing where we need to go from there.

Thanks,

Jeff

@JakeLumbis Glad you got it resolved! Yes, any errors in the project like missing footage or fonts will cause that kind of issue. In my experience, that is the most common reason to see Failed at N/A.

@JakeLumbis Have you designated a target comp (see the “from Project” section)? The best way is to name one (and only one) of your comps wrapped in curly braces {{your main comp name}} instead of your main comp name. Then, if you need to use a different target, you can set it in your data by having a “target” column and that will act as an override.

Templater is able to deal with precomps without any designation necessary. Are all of those precomps within your main comp?

@JakeLumbis

What you’re describing can absolutely be done with Templater! It’ll take a bit of work and a couple of advanced concepts, but it should 100% be feasible.

To start with, let’s address the formatted paragraph. There are a few ways that you could go about ensuring that the paragraph text comes into Templater with the correct format. The first would be to create a paragraph layer instead of a point-text layer. Templater can reversion text in a paragraph layer just as easily as it can a point-text layer and with a bit of font adjustment, we should be able to achieve what we see in the example.

The other method, if we’re using a Google Sheet as our Data Source, would be to format the text before it’s brought into Templater. Google Sheet cells support the addition of carriage returns, so if we add those to our text before importing it, the text layer should respect the formatting from the Google Sheet. There are a few other ways that we can explore if neither of these works for what you’re trying to do, but since they’re all a bit more complicated, I’d recommend that we start with these methods.

As far as the question about the bolded text is concerned, this is a bit trickier but should be doable.

The method that I would recommend would be to use the concepts outlined in this post, but instead of using a highlight, we’ll want to add a Stroke. By adding a 2-pixel wide stroke to the text we want to make bold, we should be able to create a faux bold effect that will, for the most part, be indistinguishable from a change in the actual font. One thing to note: adding a Stroke to an Animator requires that we add the “Stroke Opacity”, “Stroke Color”, and “Stroke Width” properties to function correctly. Once you set up the inital Animator, you can add those properties using the “Add” option under the new Animator.

Finally, it should be noted that Adobe is adding per-word font options to After Effects later this year. Take a look at this blog post for more information on how that’s going to be implemented. The feature is currently available in the beta branch of After Effects, so if you want to do some tests there, it should be available.

Hopefully this gets things moving in the right direction, but if you have any questions please feel free to get in touch and we’ll be more than happy to help out.

Thanks,

Jeff

@chris-czech

While Templater can import and swap PSD files in the same fashion as other image formats, unfortunately, there’s not currently a mechanism in place to import specific layers during that process.

I’ll go ahead and put in a feature request with our developers to take a look and see if there’s a way that we can offer that functionality in the future, but even if it’s possible, it would likely take some time to implement into Templater.

If we get any updates on that request, I’ll go ahead and update this thread in the future, but for right now, we’ll need to separate the layers into different source files if we want to bring in specific assets individually.

Hopefully, that helps, but if you have any other questions, please don’t hesitate to reach out.

Thanks,

Jeff

@jbenton42

Hello, hope you’re doing well. We’ve seen the sort of behavior you’re describing here before, and it generally comes from a logic problem with the setup of the Time Sculpting layers. It’s a bit difficult to explain, but usually, the issue comes from a layer that’s dependent on the logic of another layer that, in turn, doesn’t adjust properly.

To resolve this, the first thing that I would recommend would be to ensure that the system in question is running the latest version of Templater. We’ve made some recent adjustments to the Time Sculpting logic in the latest version of the plugin to specifically address the type of issues that are being described here.

If installing the latest version doesn’t make a difference, there are some additional troubleshooting techniques that we could recommend, but they tend to be a bit tedious, so if we can solve the issue with the updated Time Sculpting logic, that would be ideal.

Let’s start there and if the issue persists, we can consider what other troubleshooting steps we might take to get this issue resolved.

Thanks,

Jeff

@chris-czech

Hello!

You are correct that the “Make Comp” option in previous versions of Templater has been replaced with the “Replicate” function. That option should allow us to replicate our reversioned content internally or to external aep replicates that can be processed by Media Encoder. The only time that this wouldn’t be possible is if Templater is running in Trial Mode.

While we still allow external replication during the Trial Period, internal project Replication is turned off. This is to prevent potential abuse of the Trial mode of Templater. However, rest assured that the feature should be fully enabled in the full version of the software.

Hopefully, that helps, but if you have any other questions, please feel free to contact us; we’ll be more than happy to help.

Thanks,

Jeff